Family Time

Because RH is now working in Indonesia, it is such a privilege when he comes home. So, usually, I would avoid making any appointments when he is around and even go to the extend of cancelling/postponing my existing appointments if I am able to. I just want to be available as much as I can when he is home so that we can spend time together as a family.

Time as a family which we took for granted in the past is now such a precious time for us. C is able to re-connect with his Dad and do father-son activities which he simply cannot experience when RH is not around (partly because his mom is kinda lazy).

So, it really is a "Thank God" moment when RH gets to spend 1.5 months in Singapore. Yes, he has been here since mid Sep and he is still around. He was only meant to be in Singapore for two weeks but he kept extending week after week because he had some work he still needs to do in Singapore.

We got to settle K's PR and overstay problem. (it is another "Thank God" moment, will elaborate in another post) and he gets to attend C's year end concert. I have been bugging RH to attend C's concert but because of his work schedule, RH was going to miss C's concert. This is going to be C's graduation concert and so I was making a big deal out of it. When RH kept extending his stay in Singapore, I was really glad and I knew that God had a hand in this.

I have been praying for the Lord to prosper my marriage and family and I really thank Him for answered prayers. I think that RH's extended stay definitely helped us to stay connected better. My other prayer is of course for RH to have a closer walk with God and I am confident that it will happen one day as I know that God's heart is for all His people to have a close relationship with him.

K's first church service

Visiting the new Sentosa Watercove

K's second swimming trip

Taking a pic with C

Tumbling in bed with the kids

Attending Small Group

Need I say more?

Enjoying SG potluck

Attending C's Taekwondo grading

Going to Legoland during the holidays

Attending a friend's birthday

Superheroes

C has been going through a superhero phase. It all started out when he started to watch Toonami Channel after switching from first Disney Junior then Disney Channel and finally now he is watching Toonami. Toonami has all sorts of superhero cartoons. Iron Man, Superman, Thor, Spiderman....etc. You name it, they have it. 

It has been rather challenging to watch him grow out of Micky Mouse, Handy Manny and Taiyo to characters such as Ben Ten, Iron Man and some other Japanese character that I do not recognize. I am quite worried about the violence these cartoons are modelling but at the same time, I do not want to stop him from watching these shows just because I want to shelter C from violence and its influence. Dear Lord, I do need wisdom to teach and guide C.

Anyways, wanted to just blog about how he is soooo into superheroes now. He already has a collection of Iron Man (his favorite) toys. His Captain America, Batman and Spiderman figurine. And so, the Lollibox crafts that I ordered was also very timely because they have a superheroes theme which requires C to make a superhero ID tag, a superhero cape and a superhero mask. 

Recently, he has also started asking grandma for superhero toys instead of his usual bus or lorry or train. His most recent gift from grandma? Transformers....more than meets the eye..... hehehe. Optimus Prime. My brother XD says that if C gets tired of Optimus Prime, save the toy for him. It is rather funny that my brother XD is interested in the same toys as my  son, C. Oh well, he is really growing up so fast.

His full Iron Man armour

Stopping

Yes, I am so sad to announce that I am stopping breastfeeding K. As with C, I had an abundant milk supply this time round. However, I also had more blocked ducts and infection than when I was breastfeeding C. I  do not understand why either but after many rounds of infection and bruised nipples, I have decided to stop pumping.

I love the feeling of being able to feed K with mother's milk and I do think that it is healthier and probably do wonders for my kids but the challenges of breastfeeding is proving to be overwhelming this time. Also, I am much busier this time round than the last. It really is very challenging when you have to carry your pump to hospitals and frequently need to find a place to pump and subsequently worrying that the milk will go bad if you do not get to a fridge in time. Yes, my in laws have been having a bout of illness and injuries lately thus I really have to be out and about all the time. In addition to that, I have had to travel out of the country a couple of times which doubles the above challenges.

Other than that, with all the infections going on, there had been many times when I had to throw away milk because I was taking anti-biotics and I was not going to feed anti-biotic laced milk  to K. It was heart breaking to see all that milk go down the drain literally. And so, I have made the painful decision to stop breastfeeding. I am not sure if RH knows that it is difficult for me to make this decision. Because I think that sometimes he feels I really can't wait for the time to stop breastfeeding.

New Phase Next Year

C is going to Primary One next year. It is a brand new phase for him. He is definitely no toddler now. We would have to start paying for buffet and child fares for a lot of things. People will not be giving him special treatments and allowances for being a toddler but he will be treated as a school going child. No more skipping school for last minute getaways. I will be entering the new phase together with him. Learning new syllabus, stressing over results and undone homework.

I have already had a taste of the stress during primary school registration. Why do they make it so complicated in Singapore anyways? I started studying the primary school registration system a year before C's registration started. Studying about the different phases that we are eligible for and later on studying which schools are we narrowing our choices on. Several discussions with RH later, we finally settle on Poi Ching Primary School. Our considerations for primary schools were:

1. Proximity to our home

2. Christian School

3. Secondary School Affliations

4. Mixed gender schools (so that I do not have to go through the stress another time with K)

5. Remotely good standing school in terms of ranking

Poi Ching obviously was not able to fulfill all our criterias but I do thank God for eventually leading us to this choice and on hindsight, it was a good choice with all the changes in primary school registration and all.

Our initial choice was Anglo Chinese Primary which we were eligible for in Phase 2B. Although it was far from our home and was not a mixed gender school, it scored highly for the other 3 criterias. Alas, it was not meant to be when the rulings changed to say that all Singaporean children will have absolute priority over PR children in all phases.

Then it was a toss up between Poi Ching and Ngee Ann primary. Poi Ching fulfilled criteria 4 and 5 and somewhat criteria 1. Ngee Ann fulfilled criteria 1, 3, 4 and 5 and thus was closest to our "ideal" school. However, we were eligible to apply for Poi Ching in Phase 2B through affiliations with Futsing Association while we were only eligible to register for Ngee Ann in Phase 2C which means that there are less vacancies in the school. In the end, we decided to register C for Poi Ching which we were fairly confident we would get in and then try for Ngee Ann in Phase 2C IF there were vacancies left. Thus, the two weeks of registration phases commenced and I would check the MOE website daily to see updates of vacancies in the various Primary Schools.

Unfortunately or rather by God's planning, Ngee Ann was already full in Phase 2C so we stuck with Poi Ching. Now, I just have to get Caleb prepared and excited to be in Primary One. I think I might also have to prepare myself. I heard that Poi Ching has very high Chinese language standards and Caleb is still very poor in his Hanyu Pinyin. 

Lastly, here is a picture of Poi Ching and their uniform which I promised Caleb to google. 

Starting Over?

Should I start blogging again? This is the million dollar question I have now. I guess simply by writing this post, I have kinda made my decision. Why the sudden urge to blog again after so many years? 

A couple of days ago, I was on the phone with RH (my husband) and he told me he was reading my old blog. He was looking for a favorite link on his computer, saw the bookmark on my blog and decided on a detour. He asked me why I stopped blogging and how he really enjoyed reading my blog. He said he laughed out loud as he read it and he rarely laughs out loud when reading anything. RH then told me to start again as it would be nice for our children to read it one day. And so, being as sentimentalist like myself, I found myself starting my blog again. 

It is rather hard work trying to maintain a blog (hence why I stopped, I simply had no time). You gotta have time, effort, inspiration and you need to be interesting. Isn't that why people blog? To make it interesting enough for others to follow? Well, I have decided that this blog is going to be semi-private. Am not trying to be interesting but rather just charting my journey and significant moments so that my children one day will know what I grow through. 

As I read my old blog, I realized that I have changed or grown a lot in the past couple of years. Being a mother has really shifted my perspective. I am now more mature, more confident, more practical and definitely also more mature in my faith. 

What has changed since my last blog? C is now no longer a toddler but a little child. He is K2 now, going on to Primary One next year. Time flies, doesn't it. RH is now working in a different country and so travels back and forth Indonesia and Singapore. There is also a new addition to the family. Baby K who is eight months now. Here she is....our answered prayer after waiting for two years. 

K and my sister D

Do follow this blog if you want. Will be posting more soon. 

Love, C

Life starts at 30!

Finally go to celebrate my birthday yesterday. We had loads of relatives in from China and Indonesia over the weekend and so instead of having dinner outside, Mom cooked a huge feast for me.

It was great. Loads of fantastic food, noodles, crabs, money bags, fish...the list goes on and on. The best thing were the cakes. Yep, you got that right. It is "cakes", not "cake. Cos instead of a traditional big cake, I got seven mini ones, each one measuring no bigger than 3 inch in diameter. Each cake represents each family member and the design of the cake represents them and me or least they were suppose to be.

It was a whole lot of surprise to see the individual cakes.

{Seven Mini Cakes}

{Look how small the cakes are!}

{My Main Cake, look at the big 30}

{Mom and Dad's Cake for me, with a longevity peach at the top}

{Ron's Cake to represent our holidays together}

{Luggage at the top and map at the bottom tier}

{SK's cake for me, graphic design all the way. She is the main designer and baker for the cakes}

{BX's cake for me. A storyboard about how much we look alike and how many times people mistake her for me}

{rather complicated cake, this one}

{XD's cake for me, a representation of his love of food}

{Last and least (by size), C's cake for me, a representation of his love for bus and taxi and also his fave song "Shing a ling a ling"}

{And he drew a picture for me.....}

{What's inside? }

It is my birthday today...

Big 30.....yes it is finally here. I am officially not a young girl anymore but a mature lady or so people like to think.

Am I still busy? You bet! It is my birthday today and I still gotta go to Alpha Course tonight and re-schedule my birthday dinner to the weekend. No complains though (or maybe just a little) since RH is working late and my family is also more free on weekend.

C is now chattering and chattering and chattering.....sometimes just pointing out things around him within his limited vocabulary or sometimes just baby talking. He used to be such a quiet guy, where did he go? I want him back. It is so hard to get a moment of silence now. Hahaha.

I have been taking C to Julia Gabriels for classes once a week for a month now. I would not say that I see tremendous improvements mentally but I do find that he is less timid now and is more willing to try out new things and explore new environments. He is also understanding more things and is able to relate real items to pictures or drawings of these items. For eg. he is able to say "Bus" when he sees a real live bus on the road and also say it again when he sees a cartoon version of a bus on tv.

"Bus" and "Taxi" are now his favorite words in the car as he looks out his window. He gets so excited over them. Although he can name items in English due to the flashcards, he communicates mostly in Indonesian which is good because I do delibrately teach him more Indonesian words as he would not get to learn or use the language in school.

By the way, he hugs, kisses and bites all soft toys now.....

Anyhows, here are some pictures of him. Hopefully I get to update this blog more often.

{Playing in my baking room while we are preparing an order}

{"Act Cute", meaning to put both hands under his chin}

Update Time

Have not posted anything on this blog for the longest time. The past few months have been so busy for me. It has been really hard to get a few moments to catch my breath. Sometimes, I wonder if I should just give up one of my avenue of busyness and then I can relax a little. But what can I give up?

1. Family Time

2. Church Ministry

3. Work

4. Baking Business

Hmm, it is really a tough decision and I think at this point in time, I am unable to yet let go of any of these things. Yet, I have to reconcile and admit that it would mean, I have to sacrifice my sleep and also any leisure time for myself. Well, at least for a few more years.

C has been growing up since the last time I blogged and I mean, he really grew upwards. He is quite tall now and also leaner too, losing some of his baby fats.

{C at 2 months old}

{C at 17 months old}

He is speaking up more and is more daring but this baby of mine is still a scaredy cat by nature and would always shun anything new and mysterious.

He likes to contradict himself as well though, always staring at new things for hours and yet afraid and refusing to go near and touch the thing. For example, my sister bought a cute furry cow soft toy that makes a "mooooo" sound when you press its tummy. C was so scared of the toy that he cried the first time the cow made the "mooooo" sound.

Never give up on the first try, I say! So, I first hugged and kissed the cow to show C that the cow will not harm him. Then I tugged on the cow's tail and said "buntut" which means tail in Indo. I then kept repeating the word until C said the word himself. He calls it "bu-tut" by the way. I followed it with praises and then asked him to show me where the buntut is. He would timidly reach out his hand and point to the buntut at a distance. I reapeated the whole procedure and he managed to actually use his fingers to touch the cow's tail for a second and retreated really fast.

After a few tries and me hugging and kissing the cow, he finally decided that he could also hug the cow and remain unscathed. So my timid little baby threw his arms around the cow for a brief second, then pushed it away saying "n-mau" meaning "I don't want it" Hahaha, he is such a funny little guy.

C went for a haircut on Saturday. The moment that hairstylist whipped out her electric razor, C cried and cried and cried. He did not stop crying until we took him to the window and pointed out the bus, the cat, the imaginary dog, cece......

It really did not stop him crying for long and after 1/2 an hour of crying and lots of fallen hair, here is the result of the cut.

{before}

{after}

Guess, he did not like either of them.

This little guy is always picking up things around the house. Remote controls, pens, papers, newspapers, books, bottles, toys, boxes, his bamboo chair (yes!). It often seems that he does not know his own size and strength.

{picking up things again}

{this time an item twice his size}

Cupcake Pops

After reading Bakerella's blog, it so inspired me to make cake pops. And since there were leftover cupcakes from a customer's order on Saturday, it was the perfect opportunity. The cake pops were easy enough to make, you do need to practice a little because the first batch that I made were horrible.

{Cupcake Pops}

So, I tasted the cake pops and decided that I should just stick to regular cupcakes. The cake tasted horrible, all compressed into a mound and covered with choccolate. They are absolutely cute and adorable though, I must say.

{see how small they are compared to the spice bottle}

For the last one, there was not enough cake to make a mini cupcake so I racked my brain and came up with this. Do you know what this is? When I showed C my end products, he just picked it up and tried to whack it onto anyone who carried him.

{Guess what this is suppose to be?}

I understand, Mama

We brought little C to Jacob Ballas Children's Garden on Sunday but because it was an impromptu outing, we dis not prepare any spare clothings so he was not allowed to play in the water. It was so sad, looking at him watching the other kids play with a longing in his eyes. So, we had to quickly bring him away to other parts of the garden.

{wistfully looking at other kids having fun}

{C had to walk and walk and walk}
{miniature chairs everywhere at the garden}

It was a very interesting place and I am glad that the government thought to invest in children. I believe that C will probably enjoy it more as he grows older too.

Its amazing how much C has developed mentally. Physically, he has grown a little taller and leaner with more teeth in his mouth but he has really grown mentally. He is able to concentrate on individual items better, spending longer periods of time exploring how to open containers with screwed on tops versus those that just pop open. Exploring how my keys jingle together on my key chain. All animals are called "goog goog" now. We taught it to him to imlpy the sound dogs make when they bark but I think we overdid it cos ALL (fish, bird,bug, elephant, cat, turtle, etc.) animals are "goog goog" now.

He loves to open and close containers and I mean any containers. Powder cases, biscuit jars, his toy box, even glass covers. He is also able to repeat quite a substantial number of words. When he is in a good (learning) mood, he is able to repeat almost every word from his flashcards. What amazed me most is how much he is understanding without speaking it out.

Yesterday morning, I told him to get his shoes (spatu in Indonesian). When he did not repeat after me, I thought he did not get it, but he trotted right over to the shoe rack and picked up his own shoes and brought it over to me.

Yesterday evening as we went through the flashcards, I said the word "piglets" but he said "bobok" which means sleeping because the picture showed a mother pig lying on its sides while the piglets are suckling on her tits. He said "koko" instead of blanket because the picture showed a baby covered in a blanket and said "goog goog" instead of turtle, naturally. Hahaha!

Back from Break

It is sooooooo hard to comeback to blogging when you take a break. And I had to take a break from blogging. With all that has happened at home, I was not able to continue blogging and when everything went back to normal, it was so tough getting that first "back to blogging" post posted. Yeah, procrastination and laziness go hand in hand. Well, I am finally back and hopefully to stay.

First off, let's get an update on what has been happening.

Mummy (that's me) Front:

- Grandma passed away right after Chinese New Year, it is just not the same without her

- another run of Alpha Course has started and busy with that

- taking Precepts in church so 2 nights in church and 2 nights less with C

- taken over a colleague's job scope at work in addition to my own

- baking biz has started to see more orders

So, you can see that I am rather busy at the moment. But thank goodness for Baby C. He is becoming bigger, taller and more active now. I spend all my free time with him and he is the one who brings me joy.

{C swimming with Daddy}

Baby C Progress:

- taller, can reach things that are placed on the edge of the table

- walking, running all over the place

- able to walk up and down steps without help

- able to climb sofa and short chairs

- able to hold his own water bottle or juice box

- opens drawers and scatters all items inside

- says more Indo, Mandarin and English words. My sis says that he is a chinese baby cos he pronounces chinese words much clearer than english words

- opens and closes fist when I sing twinkle twinkle little star

- blinks eyes on command

- kiss and hug on command

- says "ah" at the end of the 2nd sentence of twinkle twinkle little star

I now know why every parents are so enamoured by their little ones. God designed it to be just this way so parents are so in love with their own offsprings. Parents get to see their children every single day and every single moment unlike others who see them once in a while. Therefore, parents get to see every single silly, cute, monstrous action that they perform. And of course, the resemblence to their own parents help.

Happy Moo Year?

It is the year of the Ox......moo moo! Will it be a good year? To most people, it is probably going to be the worst year in their recent years. I think every year that the Lord gives to us is good.

As we celebrate CNY this year, we celebrate it with a twinge of sadness. Our 83 year old grandma is in the hospital. In the Koordi family, every CNY is an event to look forward to. Good food, lots of Ang Bao and definitely the family gathering that has us all bonding. This year, unfortunately, my grandma was hospitalized the week before CNY.

To many people, CNY is just another public holiday, to the Koordi family, it is a rather important festival. Withour fail each year, every member of the family turns up for reunion dinner in their new clothes. Each year, without fail, we would have 10 dishes for reunion dinner and 10 vegetarian dishes for the first day of Lunar New Year. Without fail, mom would remind their children not to wash their hair, sweep, or use sharp objects on the first day. Without fail, we would call each and every member of our extended family to wish them Happy New Year.

That makes it extra difficult to have grandma in the hospital and more so in the ICU. We pray that a miracle will happen and that she will recover.

Anyways, on the happier side, here are some pictures from the CNY.

{C, practicing his "Gong Xi, Gong Xi"}

{C, with Papa}

{C in his traditional chinese costume, gift from his aunt}

{Ang Bao Line Up, the Gals}

{Ang Bao Line Up}

{Family Picture}